Global Journalist: 'One-Child' Policy Leaves China Graying

In 1979 China's Communist Party implemented the “One-Child Policy” to slow the country’s population growth.

The policy was lifted in 2015, yet the effects of 36 years of strict population control will be felt for years to come. Today there are about 7.6 workers for every person over 65 in China. By 2050, fully 40 percent of the population could be over that age and the country is projected to have 100 million people 80 and over.

On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at the emerging consequences of China's mass population control experiment.

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Global Journalist: 'One-Child' Policy Leaves China Graying

Note: This program originally aired March 1, 2018

Joining the program:

Shanshan Chen, multimedia journalist for Thomson Reuters Foundation and director of “Invisible Lives: A legacy of China’s family planning rules”

Massive multiplayer online role playing games like "World of Warcraft" and "League of Legends" are wildly popular in China.

But the popularity of online games has given rise to fears that the country has raised a generation of "internet addicts." One 2009 survey estimated there are 24 million young people addicted to the internet in the country.

The concern spurred the opening of more than 300 internet addiction treatment centers - many of which resemble boot camps that use controversial techniques to try to cure patients.

On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at internet addiction in China.

China’s rapid economic growth over the past two decades been nothing short of remarkable.

Of course there’s been a dark side to this growth. As China has built more factories, power plants and cars, it also became one of the most polluted countries on earth.

But since President Xi Jinping declared a ‘war on pollution’ in 2014, China has also made big strides in tackling some of the problems. It’s become a global leader in renewable energy from solar and wind, has cut smog in big cities and is planning tens of billions of dollars worth of environmental projects.

On this edition of Global Journalist: a look at China's war on pollution.

Overpopulation has been debated since British economist Thomas Malthus famously warned in 1798 that humans could reproduce far faster than they could increase their food supply.

But since Malthus's time, world population has grown from 800 million to 7.5 billion today. Yet worries about overpopulation are back. In part that's because lots more people are on the way, complicating efforts to deal with problems like climate change and water scarcity.

The UN forecasts that in the near future the world will add about 83 million people annually. By 2100, world population will grow to 11.2 billion.

On this edition of Global Journalist: a look at the growth of human population and the debate about its risks.